Yes, You Said You'd Been Working Hard

Romney's doing fine — and I offer that atop a history of harshly criticizing the former governor.

The novelty and anticipation lifting Obama to victory four years ago have expired. Economic success has eluded him: all parallels to Bill Clinton end there. Strikingly, the president hasn't offered any redefinition of his platform; nor has he promised anything new. It has the effect of mitigating the weakness of Romney's round-edged political values. That could be electoral resignation in the air; or maybe annoyance instead. Obama's message has the cadence of a contractor who's behind schedule and over budget — you can't hate the guy, but you're not sure how much longer you want to deal with him.